


Old and Grey

by BlueMinuet



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Death from Old Age, Dementia, Depression, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Old Age, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Sadstuck, other pairings hinted/implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMinuet/pseuds/BlueMinuet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He wants to add ‘remember?’ to the end of the statement, and he wants to sound a bit irritated, but he bites both back. The word ‘remember’ is like a curse now, spoken only in hushed tones, and Karkat’s emotions—even irritation—are now too much of a commodity to waste.</em><br/> <br/>John is old, and Karkat does the best he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old and Grey

When Karkat looks into the mirror, he sees a few lines and wrinkles, but not nearly enough. His hair has lost his shine, but it’s still black. 

In human terms, he looks barely old enough to be having a mid-life crisis. 

In troll terms, he’s just as much of a freak as he’s always been. 

Rust bloods can live about one to two dozen sweeps—about thirty to sixty years, in human terms. Aradia made it all the way to twenty-two sweeps. Tavros managed to make it to twenty-seven before he died. 

Karkat can’t quite remember how long ago that was. Partially because he doesn’t want to, and mostly because he doesn’t want to think about death any more than he has to. But he knows the number of sweeps is likely in the double digits, but only barely.

He thought he’d be next. It seemed like the most reasonable thing. His blood was red; he should age like a Burgundy or a Bronze. 

He never thought he’d outlive Nepeta. 

Karkat is still looking in the mirror when he hears the crash in the other room. He moves too quickly for his own good, stumbling as he bolts out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. 

The end table next to the bed has been toppled over, and with it there are hundreds of little white pills scattered everywhere. 

John is on his knees, hunched over the mess, swatting at it uselessly. 

Karkat rushes over, and grabs the human’s shoulders gently. He helps him stand, and guides him back to the bed. 

“Are you okay?” Karkat asks, and he feels a pang in his chest when he realizes how robotic it sounded. Trying to force a bit of emotion into his words, he goes on. “What happened?” 

“I was just,” John says shakily. “I was trying to get my pills. Oh, let me clean it up.” 

Karkat looks at him and shakes his head. “No, I’ll clean it up. And it’s not time for your pills yet.” 

John lets out an exasperated sigh. “Of course it is. It’s five o’clock.”

Karkat doesn’t even have it in him to sigh back. “Yeah, and you’ll take your pills in another two hours. We had to start spacing out the dosing.” 

He wants to add ‘remember?’ to the end of the statement, and he wants to sound a bit irritated, but he bites both back. The word ‘remember’ is like a curse now, spoken only in hushed tones, and Karkat’s emotions—even irritation—are now too much of a commodity to waste.

Besides, now it’s hard for John to tell the difference between the serious irritation and the affectionate kind, and misunderstandings hurt too much. 

Karkat sweeps the pills into his hand, looking at them to make sure none of them seem dirty. He’s not sure how much that matters, but buying new ones are out of the question. 

“Oh, if you say so, Karkat,” John says, nodding. 

Karkat almost wishes he’d argue. Wishes he’d insist that he was right. More than anything, Karkat wishes that John really was right, and that he did remember correctly. 

Slipping the pills back in the bottle, Karkat makes a mental note to lock up the pills. He thinks for a moment that a child-proof lock will probably do the trick, and winces at how much that statement hurts to even think. 

Still kneeling on the floor, he reaches up to sweep John’s hair back. The off-white, feathery strands slip through his fingers, and he tries to tuck them behind one ear. John grabs his hand, and Karkat does his best not to think about how John’s skin feels thinner than tissue paper. 

“What’s wrong, Karkat? You look so sad.” 

Karkat wants to explode at that. He wants to rant and rave about how wrong the world is. He wants to shout at the top of his lungs, and let red tears slip out of his eyes in fury. 

But his emotions are locked away behind his shell, in a lead-lined black box, and buried, in hopes that he’ll never have to deal with them ever again. 

So instead, he forces a smirk onto his face. “Nothing’s wrong, bulge-muncher. I was just thinking about how pitiable you are.” 

“What? Oh.” John’s features perform some acrobatics, bouncing from confusion to happiness in only a few seconds. “Karkat, you’re such a charmer.” 

Sarcasm is rare now, and Karkat thinks his smile might slowly become the real thing if John can keep this up a bit longer. 

“Are you hungry? I was just about to warm up some soup.”

* * *

Trolls don’t have diseases like this. Trolls just die. 

They get old, and once their blood can’t pump anymore they just die. 

Trolls don’t have diseases that eat the brain from the inside out. Robbing memories at random, taking away control of your own damn body, and ripping away any shreds of dignity it can get to. 

Even if that happened to a troll, they’d just cull the poor bastard, and put him out of his misery. 

Karkat knows that’s not an option—was never an option—and can’t decide if it’s better or worse that it isn’t an option. 

He lives for the random days where John wakes up, and it’s like nothing is wrong. Those rare days that John remembers everything perfectly, and cherishes the moment because he understands that such clarity may not come again soon. 

Karkat can’t remember how long it’s been since one of those days rolled around, and he decides not to try and count. 

He goes about the household chores, making sure clothes are clean and floors are mopped. It’s dreadfully domestic, but it’s mechanical and unchanging and at least he can count on these things to be the same day in and day out. 

John shuffles out of the bedroom, leaning heavily on his cane as he walks. He won’t use his walker because he is a stubborn old man. 

John and Karkat lock eyes, and the all-too-familiar look of confusion spreads over John’s features. 

“What are you doing here?” John says it almost angrily; spits it like an accusation. 

“I’m folding towels,” Karkat says, continuing the routine. 

“Well, I can see that,” John says. “Why are you doing that here? Go fold towels at your own house or something.” 

There’s more mumbling as John makes his way to the couch, but Karkat doesn’t pay attention to it. 

“Jade said she might visit today,” Karkat says, hoping that the message makes it through to him. “Maybe Dave too. Apparently, Dave took up baking ‘ironically,’ so they might bring cookies or something.”

John laughs. “Oh, that sounds like Dave. Tell them they should bring Rose along too.”

Karkat stops folding and just stares at the human as he sinks into the couch. 

Never in his life did he ever wish John was a troll. Not until now, and only because trolls don’t get diseases that eat the mind from the inside out.

* * *

Karkat doesn’t leave the house often, and only when he absolutely needs to. He goes to buy groceries once a week, and the list is nearly always the same—week after week—to the point that he barely needs to put any thought into it at all. 

After shopping, he stops at a house a few blocks away from the house he shares with John. The rest of his groceries stay in the trunk of his car, while he grabs a couple of bags and brings them to the house. 

He waits for Kanaya to open the door, and it seems like every time she gets a little slower to answer. 

When the door cracks open, she looks pale and gaunt. Karkat always asks to make sure she’s eating, and on good days she’ll playfully slap his arm, and on bad days she’ll just nod weakly. 

She looks older than him by sweeps, and neither of them is sure whether it’s because he’s aging too slowly or she’s aging too quickly. 

Kanaya hasn’t left this house in ages. When Rose got sick, Kanaya started working from home, like Karkat does now. As Rose got sicker, Kanaya found more and more ways to avoid leaving the house. 

Then Rose died, and the one troll that loved the sun locked herself away from it for good. 

Karkat curses to himself, because despite all the effort he puts in to not counting things like this, he can’t help but remember that it was nearly a sweep ago that Kanaya went home and never left again. 

“Do you want to come back with me for dinner?” he asks, and it sounds scratchy and strange, because it’s not part of their weekly script. “I was thinking I’d cook… spaghetti. That’s what I normally do on Wednesdays.”

Her eyes widen a bit, as if the Wednesday menu is the most shocking news she’s received in years. But still—as Karkat expected—she shakes her head. 

“Thank you for the offer,” she says, her voice crackling from disuse. “But… I think I’d prefer to stay inside.” 

Karkat nods numbly as she slips a check into his hands. When he began doing this for her, he used to just shred the checks, figuring the least he could do was pay for her groceries. 

It was different then. Now he cashes them, because doctor’s bills and prescriptions don’t pay for themselves.

* * *

“Fuckass, you need to get out of the house more often.” 

Karkat just frowns at her. Her hair is grey and her face is wrinkled, and if he hadn’t seen her age over the course of all these years, it would be hard for him to be sure he was looking at Jade. But there’s a fire in her eyes that is just the same as it was when she was young. 

Karkat once hated her for how much energy she still has. Now he’s past the point of caring. 

“Dave didn’t want to come?” 

Jade frowns at the change of subject. “No. He says coming here just depresses him, and I can’t really blame him.” 

Karkat just looks down at his hands. 

“Is John asleep?” she asks. 

“Where else would he be?” 

Jade sighs, and reaches a hand out to the troll. “Karkat, no one would blame you if you put him in a nursing home. Dave and I like it at the retirement home, and the nursing home next door seems nice. We’d be able to visit him and…”

Karkat glares at her, but it’s mostly out of habit. He can’t actually scrape together enough energy to be angry, especially not at her.

“Fuck you. I can’t do that,” he says. “I could never do that. I…” 

“I know,” she whispers. “But I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t say it.” 

Karkat grabs her hand and squeezes lightly, trying to block out of his mind how paper-thin her skin is.

* * *

Karkat wakes in the middle of the night to a bumping noise. Once upon a time, he was nocturnal like all trolls, but decades spent with humans have changed his sleep patterns. 

He quickly realizes that John isn’t lying next to him and bolts out of bed. 

He finds John in the hallway, leaning against a wall. Karkat thought the new pills had put an end to the sleepwalking, but apparently not. 

He moves closer to the human, and realizes that he is wide awake. 

“John? Are you okay?” 

“Where’s Rose?” John asks. 

Karkat’s mind is a little too fuzzy for his normal tact. “What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“I have to find Rose,” John says, his voice frantic. “I was looking for her, because… because… I don’t remember why, but it was important.”

Karkat grabs his arm, and gently nudges him in the direction of the bedroom. “Come back to bed, John.”

“Karkat,” John shouts, as if he just noticed him. “Karkat, I… you’re not supposed to be here. I was trying to find Rose and… This is all wrong. This isn’t how things are supposed to be.” 

Karkat wants to agree, but John wouldn’t understand what he meant anyway. “It’s all right, John. Just come back to bed.” 

John shakes his head, and pulls away from Karkat. “No, this isn’t right. This isn’t how things are supposed to be. Is this a dream bubble?” 

Karkat chokes back a sigh. These are the worst—when the disease has thrown his brain so far back that he starts to think he’s still in the game. 

“This is a dream bubble, isn’t it?” John says. “I’m asleep, and this is someone’s strange memory. And you must be asleep too. Or… are you dead?” He reaches out, and clutches Karkat’s shirt with what little strength he has. “You’re not dead are you? You can’t be dead.” 

Karkat shushes him, gently peeling the man’s fingers off of his shirt, and pulling him into a hug. “It’s okay. No one is dead. We’re both fine.” 

Lying like this is so common, the words flow from Karkat’s lips as easily as stating that the sky is blue. 

“Good,” John whispers to the troll’s neck. “I’m glad you’re all right. And I’m happy to see you. I’ve missed you, Karkat.” 

Karkat momentarily wishes he hadn’t completely buried the part of himself that knew how to cry. He settles for holding John closer, and pressing a small kiss on his head. 

“I’ve missed you too, John.”

* * *

“I’m sorry.” 

Karkat looks over at the man holding his hand, trying to focus on the man and not all the beeping machines, wires, and tubes attached to him. He fails to ignore them, in the same way he fails to ignore the vague ache present in every part of his own body. 

“I have no idea what you’re apologizing for,” Karkat says. “You, John Egbert, have never done anything worthy of uttering an apology.” 

“That’s not true,” John croaks, with the slightest of smirks. “You’re only saying it because it sounds good.” 

Karkat doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have it in him to argue about anything anymore. 

“I’m sorry because… I know this isn’t easy,” John says. “I wish that I knew when I woke up, I’d remember who you are. But some days I don’t remember, and some days I do. And on the days that I do, I feel terrible that I could ever forget. So, while I remember, I just want to tell you… I’m sorry.”

Karkat squeezes his hand gently, careful not to damage his unfairly fragile anatomy. 

“And… I love you,” John says. “I always love you. Even when I don’t remember.”

Karkat repeats the sentiment back to him, but in Alternian. John’s smile widens with each alien sounding click and trill over vowels and consonants, knowing the sequence by heart from a lifetime of Karkat reciting it. 

“I love you too,” Karkat repeats in English. He means it—he really does—even if he’s too numb to feel it right now.

* * *

Karkat looks down at his hands. He studies them as he wrings them together. Studies the linoleum floor beneath him, as if it holds some sort of secret. Examines how the wooden pews that surround him are put together.

He looks at anything to avoid looking up at trolls he hasn’t talked to in years; highbloods whose youth does nothing but upset him. He examines anything and everything to avoid hearing whatever Strider—standing amidst a sea of flowers and pictures, and an all-too full wooden box—is talking about; something about fond memories of April Fools’ days past and perfectly pulled off pranks. 

Karkat looks up only slightly when he notices someone sit next to him, and somehow his sore eyes manage to widen when he sees it's Kanaya. It’s been so long since she’s been out of her house, that the sight manages to break past his defenses, and make him feel something. 

She reaches over and pulls his hands apart, slipping one of her hands into his.

He stares at the clasped hands, not quite sure what’s going on. 

“I think they’d like you to say something now,” Kanaya whispers to him, her voice sounding slightly less rusty than last time they talked. 

“Fuck them.” 

“Fair enough,” she replies. 

He keeps staring at her, trying to find signs that she’s real. She’s still pale and gaunt. There are no signs of emotion on her face, except for a bit of green puffiness around her eyes. She still looks like the broken woman he brings groceries to every Wednesday. But she’s here. 

“Does it... get better from here?” he asks. 

“I don’t know,” she says. “I haven’t moved forward in a sweep.”

He stares back down at the floor.

“But I think…” she says. “Perhaps… it doesn’t get any worse.” 

He nods, slowly. “I’ll take it.” 

His shell is cracking now, against his will, and he feels an odd emotion that he’s too rusty to identify creeping up on him.

He doesn’t know what it is, but it’s something. 

He’s no longer completely numb, and soon it will hurt like hell. 

But the pain is better than nothing. 

He’ll take it.


End file.
